The Rise of Blackdeep Ch. 02

On the larger scheme of things, the police were having trouble figuring out just who was involved as the bodies were all unidentifiable. There was a quote from a detective speculating that the merchant party was a local Yakuza cell, but then there was another quote from another detective saying that seemed unlikely because the Yakuza had never been involved in the drug game before. What they did agree on was that the buyers where almost certainly in the employ of Juicy Germaine, the region's biggest crime lord.

The third part of the article gave some background about Germaine and his syndicate, and had a bunch of quotes from various officials excitedly speculating that with a witness they would finally be able to pin him with something serious and put him away.

Assuming the witness cooperated of course.

Xavier was stonewalling them; apparently the only time he had spoken aloud since waking up handcuffed to a hospital bed was during the phone call to his lawyer. A much more expensive lawyer then someone like Xavier should be able to afford.

Jim followed the story obsessively as it unfolded over the next few months. It was one of those circus trials. Everyone knew Germaine was behind it, between the size of the deal, the high-powered lawyer and Xavier's known associations with him, that much was obvious. There just wasn't any solid proof. Then the big day rolled around and Xavier stood up in court and said flat out that it had all been a deal he had set up on the side and that Germaine hadn't even known about it, let alone orchestrated it. This was clearly a bullshit yarn to cover Juicy G's ass, but it sealed the deal anyway. There was some circumstantial evidence pointing to Germaine, whereas Xavier had literally been found at the scene, along with a ruined MAC-10 with his fingerprints on it, and had straight up said that he did it. They had no choice but to let Xavier take the fall and nailed his ass to the wall with almost fifty counts of murder, along with just about everything else they could think of, from possessing an unlicensed firearm to wanton destruction of private property. They even tacked on a noise pollution charge for the explosion. When it was all said and done and the dust settled, he was sentenced to almost a thousand years in Blackdeep, with no possibility of parole.

Jim had been positively delighted.

Even though he had nothing to do with it, it was still immensely satisfying to watch his old nemesis's slow-mo crash and burn. He loved to think about the big man being stuck in a cage, chained to other prisoners, pushed around by guards...

His mind snapped to the brochure his parents had left sitting out for him, about being a security guard. He had dismissed them off had as being a job he didn't have the balls for, but now he wasn't so sure...

He ended up applying to Blackdeep, but they turned him down for not having any experience, and this just made him want the job all the more. He wasn't sure when, there may not have been a specific moment, but somewhere along the line he realized what he was going to do. He was going to get a job at Blackdeep, and he was going to show Xavier who had the bigger dick now.

He ended up getting a security job at the local university, which basically meant sitting around in a golf cart all day, oogling the girls and whishing he had been able to go to collage. Most of the other security jobs he took were basically just like that with different scenery.

Eventually he had enough of a resume built up that he decided to apply to Blackdeep again. He barely made it. Two of the older guards were retiring, but on top of that another had come down with mumps of all things, and another was killed in a car crash, leaving them unexpectedly short-staffed. He had dimly been aware of Captain Takashi warning him that this was going to be very different from his previous jobs and that it was not a coincidence that most of the other guards were ex cops or soldiers. He had only been dimly aware partly because that was the first time he had met the Captain, his replacement for Jenelle, his new angel, and partly because he couldn't wait to see the look on Xaviers face when he first jabbed him a nightstick.

Unfortunately, that's not quite how their reunion went. Jim was hoping to have time to come up with something badass to say, but before he had the chance he had passed Xavier being escorted to Block C by a group of guards in the hall.

"Mini dick?" Xavier had called with the tone of someone greeting an old friend. "It is you! Haha what are you doing here? You didn't come just to see little old me did you?"

Jim felt red creeping up his collar, partly from being referred to by his old nickname but mostly because Xavier was right, he was there for him.

It didn't take long for Takashi to notice the animosity between the two, and made sure they stayed apart as much as possible. When they did come into contact it almost always ended in conflict since Xavier loved to mouth off so much and Jim took every excuse he could to be hard on him and ideally hit him with his stick a few times, even though he wasn't strong enough to do much with it.

And that's pretty much how it went for Jim. He spent most of his time obsessing over Captain Takashi like had done with Jenelle a few years previously, although it was much tougher since myspace wasn't a thing anymore. He stayed distracted by going on powertrips with the prisoners, but in his darkest moments he couldn't help but admit that it was pretty pathetic to base your whole life around getting revenge on the guy who was mean to you in high school.

He continued to soak up the breeze and sunshine at the top of the tower, gazing absent-mindedly at the cars as they crawled along the coastal road, completely unaware of the dark clouds forming over the ocean behind him.

--

Charles kept his head down and his shoulders hunches as he moved with the flow of prisoners heading to the visitation rooms. He hadn't even been there a month and he had already learned that one.

Ever since he had received that call from his lawyer a few years ago, things had been going slowly but steadily to hell.

He hadn't even been that worried at first. After all, he was Charles Murphy, bazillionaire. When problems arose he simply dropped money on them until he couldn't see them anymore and moved right along. It honestly hadn't really sunk in just how hard he had fucked himself, until he was actually in front of the judge, being sentenced to what would probably end up being life in prison. Or at least he had thought that's when it sunk in. It actually sunk in about nine months later, after he saw the huge notice on the Clearwell bulletin board informing them that the whole place was practically glowing and that they all had to get the fuck out of there yesterday.

Elated, he had called his lawyer asking when he would be getting his ankle bracelet and ticket back to caviar land. Anyone watching him make that phone call would have been treated to just about the full gamut of expressions his face was capable of, starting with the aforementioned elation, moving through confusion, suspicion, dread, a brief moment of incomprehension and then finally terror.

It still hadn't hit him even as he was being processed upon arrival at the island, numbly removing his clothes and getting sprayed down with some chemical shit that left his skin raw and his eyes burning, but in hindsight was still probably better then having lye thrown in his face. He took the soap they gave him and washed his pudgy body as his partners in crime did the same next to him. Then they took his name and his Gucci/Valentino/Armani ensemble and replaced them with nine digits and an orange jumpsuit.

It had finally sunk in for real when he met his cell-mate. The cute little captain had given them a severe lecture on the differences between Blackdeep and Clearwell, which Charles had really tried to listen to, but found it extremely difficult to do so as she had turned around to gaze out at the compound from her office window for dramatic effect, inadvertently putting her crazy ass on display. Even in as such a serious situation as he was, Charles was still totally mesmerized by how her uniform was stretched so full it looked like it was vacuum packed, and they way its bubbly contents would jiggle and ripple with even the slightest shift in weight. Never, not even at the rowdiest parties with his billionaire buddies, where the fanciest strippers had been brought in by the gross, had he seen anything like that.

She turned around and strode back to her desk, breaking the spell. Charles was desperately trying to remember what she had been saying as she opened a drawer and pulled out an old-school pen and paper ledger. He remembered she was assigning them cells, just as she finished running her finger down one of the columns, evidently searching for something.

"You," she said, gesturing at him without looking up. "Cell one twenty eight." He just had time to peek at the name next to her finger before she quickly flipped the page, looking for another candidate.

Xavier.

The other two were assigned their cells in the same impersonal fashion, then they were led down to the cellblock, and before they knew it, for the first time since being sentenced, they were split up.

It happened so fast that they were long gone before it had even registered, and he suddenly felt very alone, which made sense, given that he was. Don and Albert had been in exactly the same boat as him and could relate completely, as well as just being his friends. Most of their time at Clearwell had been spent lounging around, drinking mineral water and bitching to each other about how rough they had it. Hopefully this Xavier was as good company.

They reached the cage that was to become his new home, and he caught his first sight of Xavier, who was, unsurprisingly, (though Charles had quietly been hoping otherwise) a giant black man. His heavy breathing filled the space as he did sit-up after sit-up.

"Alright, legs apart, hands on the wall," the guard barked. Both his slightly exasperated tone of voice and the lazy way Xavier complied suggested that they had run through this particular routine more then once. Xavier's jumpsuit was unzipped and he only wore the bottom half, with the sleeves tied around his waist. He stood up against the wall, silently panting as the guard opened the door. It was quite a process, first hitting a button that sent a request to the guard in the booth above, who then buzzed a window in which to disengage the first lock, then an eight-sided key to disengage the second. The door rattled open and the guard gave him a firm push in the small of his back. He stumbled in and the door hit home behind him with more then a little finality. The guard walked off without another word and Charles was alone with this huge, breathing beast of a man.

Xavier still stood as he was, his breathing slower now. His back was a wall of glistening muscle the color of that fancy dark chocolate Albert ate. Used to eat. His body was covered in tattoos, obviously accumulated over a fair amount of time and not arranged in any sort of cohesive or premeditated layout. On his lower right back he had a rather crude two-tone African mask, with the blurry outline of an image made long ago, which was impressive, given that he was only in his early twenties. To the left of this, extending up to his shoulder blade was an extremely well done full color slutty biker/samurai chick, complete with katana, leaning against a brick wall covered in Japanese graffiti that faded out around the edges, with the tail lights of a crotch rocket just peeking in next to her. In the space next to this and above the mask was an evil monster snowman dressed in a pimp outfit, clearly faded and older but still well done. On the nape of his neck he had a simple graphic of an eclipse, very sharp and fresh looking, clearly the freshest on his body. When he finally turned around he revealed a torso like a Greek god, each muscle of his stomach clearly defined and textured with engorged capillaries from his recant workout. On his lower stomach, just above the tuft of thick pubic hair sticking up from his crotch, was a much more skillfully done version of the mask on his back, rendered to look glossy black. He had a huge green weed leaf covering his right pectoral and the words 'SUCKA FREE' made to look diamond studded across his upper stomach, although this was partially obscured by chest hair. On his left forearm he had a sexy red-skinned devil/stripper/gangsta with no top and leather hotpants that laced up the side, clearly done by the same person who did the biker/samurai. One hand grasped a gold stripper pole with a blunt hanging from her fingers; the other held an Uzi dangling casually at her side. On his right forearm was a large silhouette of brass knuckles. Filling the gaps between these major pieces were dozens of small graphics, tags, symbols and sayings, done with varying degrees of crudity.

Charles's eyes moved up to his face and almost physically recoiled at the intensity of the hate in his gaze. Xavier had a wide jaw, a wide brow, a medium sized nose and dark eyes that seemed perpetually angry, one of which had a stream of five teardrops coming from the corner. The other was droopy and slightly milky, and the surrounding temple and forehead had the shininess of a gnarly burn scar. He was bald with heavy stubble on his face.

For a moment they stood like that, with Xavier staring down at Charles with utter contempt while he gawped up at the thug like a fish. Eventually he got a hold of himself. At least he knew the man's name, and could make a good impression. He held out his hand.

"Hi, Mr. Xavier, I'm Charl-"

He would never in a million years have believed that someone so big could move so fast. In the blink of an eye Xavier crossed the cell, picked up Charles by the front of his jumpsuit and slammed him into the wall.

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKIN TO, CRACKA?!" Xavier screamed in his face, "IM THE ONLY OTHER NIGGA IN HERE, BUT I KNOW YOU CAN'T BE TALKIN TO ME CAUSE I AINT NO FUCKIN MISTER AND I AINT NO FUCKIN EX-SAY-VEE-YOR NEITHER, ITS ZAVIOR, THREE FUCKIN SYLLABLES BITCH, AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!!!!"

He let Charles crumple to the floor. "Besides," he said in a slightly calmer but equally menacing voice, "what makes you think I give a fuck what your name is, you greedy little cracker?" He stood over him for a moment more then laid back down on the floor and continued to do sit-ups.

That's when it really hit him, while he was crumpled on the floor with a urine stain spreading on the front of his jumpsuit while his brute of a cellmate huffed and puffed away next to him. The life he had lived was gone, never to return. He had fucked that up, and in its place had received living hell.

The only thing he had, the only connection to his past life and his only glimmer of hope, was his wife, Jenelle. He kept his head down all the way to the visitation rooms.

--

Don shuffled his feet nervously, feeling much more vulnerable now that it was Albert's turn and he was alone. Like Charles he had taken a harsh free fall down the status quo, and had gone from having three star chefs cooking to order in his house, to eating nutrient paste on the floor because no one would let the white guys sit with them. He was at the visitation rooms waiting for one to open up, but from the looks of things, they were all going to be occupied for the rest of the day except for the one Al was using and he had just gone in.

He stood pressed against the wall, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible while staring with disgusted fascination at the spectacle unfolding in front of him. Each room, he saw when the door opened in between thugs, contained a skanky black woman. Outside of the rooms the inmates were lining up for conjugal time. Lining up! Every now and then a door would open and a thug would strut out, zipping up his jumpsuit, and fist bump with the next guy in line.

"Fuck I can't wait, it's been way too damn long!"

"Don't worry dogg, it'll be worth it, that bitch is primed."

Eventually they started getting impatient and began pushing in two, three, four at a time, and Don could hear hoarse screaming that sounded like something from the discovery channel when they opened the doors to rotate. 'Those poor girls', he thought, listening to their cries and imagining the savagery being inflicted upon them by these depraved inmates. But then he thought of how they were dressed, and the fact that they had come here. What kind of women were they? Sluts, he supposed. Mega sluts. He was disgusted at the thought, how could the prison allow this? But at the same time he felt a small sliver of something else. Respect? He stood like that for a while, every now and then catching the eye of one of the other inmates, who would inevitably give him a disgusted snort and a hairy look.

Eventually, after much less time then he was expecting, Albert returned. He didn't look good. He started for Don but was intercepted by a security guard who took him by the arm and led him off in the other direction. Eventually he was informed he could go in.

The visitation room was basically just like one of the cells, except there was only one slab bed sticking out from the wall and it had two doors. Standing in the middle of the room, practically glowing against her black stone surroundings, was Sasha. Immediately he felt so much of the tension and terror he had been experiencing over the past month melt away. Sasha: his sweet, beautiful, familiar wife. God, she looked good. She had obviously dressed on the sexy side for him. Lacy black heels, milk white legs patterned with bold fishnets, and a sleeveless black minidress that was made from some soft corduroy-like material clung to her body, her nipples protruding dramatically. The high turtleneck led to her face, with lips painted crimson and dark mascara boldly framing her gunmetal grey eyes, which always seemed to have a vaguely amused look to them. Her cheeks were strangely rosy, as if she had been running or something and got her heart pumping. Her chin length shock of void colored hair stood out sharply next to her pale skin, and was currently slicked straight back, as though she had just risen from a pool. She had a small scar on her left cheek, just a nick, though sharply defined, that she easily pulled off as a beauty mark. The small blemish stood alone on the marble expanse of her skin, a slight asymmetry that only made her beauty all the more interesting, and pulled the corner of her mouth up ever so slightly, adding to her Mona Lisa like look of private amusement.

Don, on the other hand, looked terrible. He had dark circles under his eyes and his once paunchy frame had been replaced with the sunken look that comes from loosing weight too quickly.

They greeted each other, and Sasha felt a distinct clinginess in his embrace that she had never felt before. They caught up on how the other had been and what they had been up to, with Sasha filling him in on her video game playing and online shopping. When it was Don's turn he told her all about the transfer to Blackdeep and it seemed to spill out of him, going into all sorts of details until Sasha cut him off by pushing him back on the bed.

She had a routine she had perfected at Clearwell. She would listen to him complain for a while and pat him on the back, them fuck him. She was fond of Don, he could be sweet, as well as having the bond of familiarity that came from living with someone. She also felt a warped sense of amused gratitude toward him for funding her trophy wife lifestyle, although this feeling was more along the lines of the gratitude an owner feels toward their pet then actual respect. She was willing to listen for a while, but she had had enough of his rambling. She had grown used to not having him around, and her PlayStation and Amazon account beckoned.